Article excerpt

A WOMAN who suffered cardiac arrest while shopping in Oxford Street had her life saved by a doctor who "cooled" her brain.

Zoe Hitchcock, 29, collapsed while shopping for a birthday present for her husband Phil. Her heart was restarted by London Ambulance Service cycling paramedic Eoin Walker.

Then Dr Gareth Davies, medical director of London's Air Ambulance, took over. Dr Davies, who has pioneered the use of "cooling cars", kept Ms Hitchcock alive in the crucial "golden hour".

He said: "She wasn't waking up. When I looked into her eyes, her pupils were dilated and fixed, like you see in dead people." He injected a salt fluid to lower her body temperature from 37C to 34C, reducing the brain's demand for oxygen and glucose. "Cooling protects the brain from digesting itself from within," he added. After collapsing in June, Ms Hitchcock, an administration worker with Hertfordshire police, spent 72 hours in an induced coma at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington and Hammersmith Hospital. …